Looking off from the ridge they saw a man and a woman riding along a strip of road from which the timber had been cut. The night was so still, the gray light so subdued, that the two figures moved as steadily and softly as shadow pictures on a screen.
The slow even movement of the riders was interrupted suddenly. The man, who was nearer the remote observers, had stopped and bent toward the woman as though to snatch her rein, when her horse threw up its head and fell back on its haunches. Then the woman struck the man a blow with her riding-crop, and galloped swiftly away along the white ribbon-like road. In the perfect night-silence it was like a scene of pantomime.
"That's all right!" cried Cooke. "Come along! We'll cut into that road at the bungalow."
They swung their horses away from the ridge and back into the bridle-path, which once more dipped sharply down into heavy timber, Cooke leading the way, and three of the best hunters known to the Ardsley stables flew down the clear but winding path. The incident which the trio had witnessed required no interpretation: the girl's blow and flight had translated it into language explicit enough.
Ardmore thanked his German forester a thousand times for the admirable bridle-path over which they galloped, with its certain footing beneath and clean sweep from the boughs above. The blood surged hotly through his heart, and he was angry for the first time in his life; but his head was cool, and the damp air of the forest flowing by tranquilized him into a new elation of spirit. Jerry Dangerfield was the dearest and noblest and bravest girl in the world—he knew that: and she was clever and resourceful enough to devise means for preserving her father's official and private honor; and not less quick to defend herself from insult from a titled scoundrel. She was the most inexplicable of girls; but at the same time she was beyond any question the wisest. The thought that he should now see her soon, after all the years that had passed since he had introduced her to his sister at Raleigh, filled him with wild delight, and he prayed that in her mad flight from the Duke of Ballywinkle no harm might come to her.
The three men rode out into the broad highway at the red bungalow and paused to listen.
"He hasn't got here yet. Only one person has passed and these must be the tracks of the girl's horse," said Cooke, who had dismounted and struck matches, the better to observe the faint hoof-prints in the hard shell road.
"He'll be along in a minute. Let us get into the shadow of the bungalow, and when he comes we'll ride out and nail him. The bungalow's a sort of way house. I often stop here when I'm out on the estate and want to rest, I have the key in my pocket."
As Ardmore's keys jingled in the lock Cooke cried out softly. Their quarry was riding swiftly toward them, and he drew rein before the bungalow as Cooke and Collins rode out to meet him.